Self-study
Vanwilligan: Some have argued that professional athletes receive unfairly high salaries. ███ ██ ██ ████████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███ █████ █████████ █████ ████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ █████ ██████ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ █████████████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ █████
Summary
The high salaries professional athletes receive are fair. Why? In an unrestricted free market like the one athletes compete in, salaries are determined by what someone will pay for your services, and team owners are willing to pay athletes extraordinary salaries.
Missing Connection
The conclusion is about fairness, but the premises don’t talk about fairness.
How to get from premises to conclusion? According to the premises, we know that team owners are willing to pay athletes extraordinary salaries. We can infer the argument’s conclusion if we assume that if someone is willing to pay an athlete a high salary, that salary is fair.
19.
Vanwilligan's conclusion follows logically if █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
a
The fairest economic ██████ ███ █ ███████ ██ ███ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████████ ████ ███████
The argument isn’t concerned with which economic system is fairest. It’s concerned with whether the salaries athletes receive are fair.
b
If professional athletes ████ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ███ █████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ██████
This doesn’t discuss fairness, so it can’t be right. The argument’s conclusion is about fairness, yet the premises never discuss fairness. The correct answer must bridge this gap.
c
The high level ██ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████████ ████████ ████ █████████
This doesn’t discuss fairness, so it can’t be right. The argument’s conclusion is about fairness, yet the premises never discuss fairness. The correct answer must bridge this gap.
d
Any salary that █ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ███ ████████ ██ █ ████████████ ███████ ██ █ ████ ███████
According to the premises, we know that team owners are willing to pay professional athletes high salaries. If (D) is true, we can infer that the high salaries professional athletes receive are fair, which is the argument’s conclusion.
e
If a professional █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ██ ████████████ ████ ███████
The correct answer choice must prove that the salaries professional athletes receive are fair, yet (E) only tells us about what’s true “if” the salaries professional athletes receive are fair.